The Feminist and the Fraudster
How Susan B. Anthony and Donald J. Trump Share a Moment
The post The Feminist and the Fraudster appeared first on Washington Monthly.
The conviction of former President Donald Trump for falsifying records to support his 2016 campaign has only magnified his baseless charges of partisanship in the legal system. Even as a felon, he and his enablers continue to threaten our democracy. The infuriating delays of his two federal trials—for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election and for his alleged mishandling of classified documents when he lost that election—set off a new wave of frustration this week with Judge Aileen Cannon’s refusal to gag him for posted remarks that could threaten government agents. In what may be the most troubling roadblock, the Supreme Court is considering Trump’s claim of immunity relating to the January 6 Capitol riot, which means his culpability for trying to negate 81 million votes may not be known until after this November’s presidential election.
It is simply maddening.
But as one who believes deeply in the sanctity of my—and your—vote, I am reminded of another historic moment when political interference with American justice threatened our most cherished democratic privilege.
The scene is framed above my desk in New York: a black-and-white newspaper engraving from 1873 showing Susan B. Anthony addressing a woman suffrage convention in midtown Manhattan. She was regaling the packed house with the tale of her arrest and upcoming trial for the crime of …voting!
In November 1872, with most American women still almost half a century away from being allowed to vote in federal elections, the then 52-year-old suffragist and a handful of allies marched to the polls and, creatively interpreting the recently ratified 14th Amendment, claimed birthright citizenship to reelect Ulysses S Grant for president, and to vote for some members of the House and state government. It was a test case, a bold gambit to advance our democracy, and the federal government tested right back, arresting the women but then singling out Anthony to prosecute.
I’ve celebrated her chutzpah for decades, grateful that her bravado back then helped secure my rights today. But a closer look at her civil disobedience reveals a startling connection to Trump’s contemporary threats to our right to vote: Anthony was arrested under the same statute employed by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the indictment of former President Trump in federal district court in Washington, D.C., for, among other things, “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”
Some history: After the Civil War, Congress passed the 1870 Enforcement Act to put teeth into the 14th and 15th Amendments to protect the civil and voting rights of Black men in the South from the Ku Klux Klan and other White terrorists. The simultaneous creation of the Department of Justice brought muscle to the new law. In 2023, Section 6 of that Act (now codified as 18 U.S.C., Section 241) was cited in the fourth indictment of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump. It is a crime to conspire to hinder the right to vote—in his case, by staging a coup to negate legitimate votes.
Anthony was prosecuted under Section 19 of the 1870 Enforcement Act—a late addition (U.S. Stat. 1878, Section 5511 [current version at 18 U.S.C. Section 371]) to address illegal voting in Northern cities. Like the other sections, it was written by Republicans (notably Radical Republicans), then the progressive majority in Congress. They aimed to stop Democrats from flooding polls in New York and elsewhere with unwitting immigrants whom they’d fraudulently “naturalized.” The section made criminals of those voting in Congressional elections “without having a lawful right to vote.” While not intended for Anthony and other suffragists, it was a handy way to keep them in line.
The two cases—Trump’s and Anthony’s—like the individuals, are antithetical. Anthony wanted to expand democracy, while Trump tried to upend it. She cited and had faith in federal law; he rants about states’ rights, most recently in his pronouncements about where abortion rights should be determined. And while Anthony owned her insurgence, eager for her day in court and “the full rigors of the law,” Trump embraces victimhood, whining, “If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!” Which is, of course, the point.
Or is it?
I asked Robert J. Kaczorowski, professor of law emeritus at Fordham Law School, a Constitutional scholar and legal historian, how a single law could ensnare such widely divergent crimes.
“The law was enacted to preserve the legitimacy and validity of elections,” he told me. “In the Trump case, we’re using that law as it was intended, to punish people who invalidate or attempt to invalidate election results. But it worked in a contrary manner for Susan B. Anthony because it deprived her of a right that women have today.”
How come?
“Law reflects culture,” Kaczorowski explained. “Susan B. Anthony was correctly found guilty, but the law that was applied to her reflected the culture of her time. Women were regarded as unqualified to vote. Social norms defined the law.”
Kaczorowski said that the power of those norms turns more sinister with Trump. “Trump is correctly being prosecuted under the 1870 law. But the cultural norms of Trump and his supporters are driving disrespect for the law. Trump is abusing many of the Constitution’s guarantees that ensure due process, and the legal system is being corrupted.” Adding to the corruption, he said, is the Supreme Court, with its consideration of immunity, and Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, with her interminable postponements in the documents case.
Trump’s disdain for the system was evident long before seeking presidential and post-presidential immunity became his Hail Mary. He elbows the law aside just as he once shoved a European head of state out of his way. We watch his anti-legal antics daily. To be fair, both cases were and are front-page news. That picture on my wall of Anthony speaking? It’s from The Daily Graphic, one of the first American tabloids to use illustrations to peddle papers. A more unflattering caricature of her as “The Woman Who Dared” appeared on its cover a month later, just before her trial began. Celebrity crime sells, then and now.
Susan B. Anthony understood this. She dined out on her lawlessness for years, proudly re-enacting her arrest to raise funds for the suffrage campaign. She was found guilty at her widely covered trial—not by a jury, but with a directed verdict from Ward Hunt, a Supreme Court justice riding circuit (as was the custom) to preside over select cases. At least one contemporary editorial suggested that the trial was scheduled to coincide with Justice Hunt’s arrival and was engineered by those concerned that letting women vote might add new Democratic female voters to the rolls along with the Republican-leaning suffragists.
Anthony died in 1906 at 86, a famous felon whose unrealized dream of universal suffrage had earned her a $100 fine. She never paid it and was never sent to jail. She would not be vindicated until 36 states ratified the 19th Amendment 14 years later. Full suffrage for other marginalized groups, most notably Black Americans, would take longer. Finding Anthony not guilty would have sped the entry of women into the political arena and opened doors to untold progress. The country just wasn’t ready.
By contrast, according to a recent poll, most Americans want Donald Trump to stand trial—before the upcoming election—on the subversion charges related to his 2020 bid. If the Supreme Court grants Trump immunity to escape the January 6 trial or its ruling delays a verdict until after November, the consequences would be terrifying.
The very different prosecutions of Anthony and Trump reflect the fragility of election integrity. In the United States of America vs. Susan B. Anthony, the feds took advantage of a tool designed to foil Democratic ambitions to block a national leader from expressing the aspirations of women. In United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, the political interference comes from the accused himself (and his followers), challenging Special Counsel Smith’s more honorable mandate—to show that no one is above the law, even a president. Anthony’s case helped shape the past, but Trump’s could define our future, especially if it is rendered moot. This time, the issue is not about social norms or testing a law. It’s about the nation’s survival.
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